Septic Pump Help

My husband and I are building a house in a heavily wooded and hilly area. Our septic site is uphill from the house site. We do not want to move the house so it seems our only option is to use a septic pump. I've been searching this forum for awhile trying to find answers to my questions, but I've had no luck.

What size (HP) pump do we need for a 1000 gal tank? The line will be about a 3' rise over 100'. What brand do you guys recommend? What GPM flow? I'm just learning this stuff so I'm a bit lost! Any information would be greatly appreciated.

Zoellers web site will give you the pump sizing chart and the performance curves that you need to properly size the pump. If the system handles all the effluent in the house I recommend two pumps, one for a back up with alarms and switching so that if the pump fails on the weekend or a long vacation you still have service. Liberty also makes a good system.

Seeing as your whole house will be on this system I would recommend a duplex pump system with alternating pumps and an alarm.
This will give you redundancy and notification if a problem arises. There is nothing worse than than a failure of a single pump system on a Saturday afternoon on a holiday weekend...

Be sure to put your septic tank at the house site, and pump just effluent up the hill. Now you saved a thousand on the pump and you can set the pump in a Orenco [or other] filter screen within the second chamber in the tank. I think one pump is plenty with that set up as long as you have a good high water alarm or two. Forward thinking septic installers will give you 50' of leach pipe on the outlet end of the tank for the day that the pump fails - no back up into house and gives time to swap the pump without wading in a mess.

Be certain your installer knows the parameters of the particular septic tank in terms of setting the high and low float height. You have to pump within the tank MFGR's specs. Also install a LARGE size riser with lid, so a person get step inside and work on the checkvalves and unions and floats without another guy holding him upside down by his ankles.